Placing a pig safely in Tennessee
If you are trying to place your pig or are acting as a placement agency for someone's pig here are some things to consider when talking with prospective homes:
IN Tennessee we have a mixture of great laws and poor enforcement.. and good people making bad decisions and bad people doing very well at obtaining pet pigs for horrible uses..
Do not even consider for a millisecond placing a pig in a home you haven't personally visited.. no matter how nice they seem, no matter who they say they work with.. or for any reason.. ALWAYS check them out. They can be good people just trying to bypass red tape .. or they can be terrible people. Here are a few examples we have encountered in our adoption work over the years, either personally or by people working with us directly. None of these are "word of mouth" legends.. they are all first person experiences by people in the pig rescue/placement business here. We run ads for placements in many local TN newspapers and have talked to many of these people ourselves.. from a gal wanting pet pigs to turn loose on her sanctuary (it turns out it is a wolf sanctuary) to kindly ladies who want a pig for their grandkids.. when checked out it was a hunting preserve.
1) The biggest business involving pigs in TN is canned hunts.. for which hundreds of pigs are smuggled illegally into TN from GA and FL every year to be shot or killed by bow and arrow by "hunters" often seated in chairs as the animals are penned in front of them. These are VERY popular in TN and growing. (Recently an acquaintance of ours dove by a place where a buffalo was being slowly and torturously killed by hundreds of arrows plugged into him by beer guzzling "men" if you can call them that. Pot bellies are snatched up as soon as ads hit the paper for "free to good home".. and these once pampered pets are turned into arenas and killed. Some ads are blatant in papers.. "We take in all pigs" reads one. for a "hunting preserve". Our laws say you cannot kill a potbellied pig but without enforcement they kill them in huge numbers. Does anyone really think these are "Wild pigs"? Of course not. The people who participate in these "hunts" are not interested in hunting.. just killing.. its for the thrill of hearing the screams and seeing the agony of death. You cannot tell by talking to someone what kind of place it is.. or what their intentions are.. Without a comprehensive interview, vet references and that all important home check.. you are putting the pigs at risk.. most often the callers are women who lie about getting a pig for their grandkids..
2) right behind the atrocity of canned hunts are hog/dog rodeos where pigs are torn apart by dogs for the fun of watching it.. They are first bound so that they cannot fight back then tossed into a ring with pit bulls. Considered a family entertainment among the lower classes, this recently was criminalized but stopping it will be like stopping cock fighting, also illegal. Do you think potbellies aren't used? Think again.. I saw film of one in Alabama before the law was passed there.. . a pet pig that could have been on someone's lap a week before was being ripped open by dogs.
3) Dog food We have people who answer ads, always nice women by the voices and stories.. who take pigs and slaughter them for their dogs.
4) Human food We know of several attempts to "adopt" by people who find free to good home ads mean free food on their tables. They also take in any other livestock animals. One woman was going to all the shelters in the middle part of the state telling them she had a rescue for farm animals. (This is a common practice everywhere). Fortunately a couple of the animal shelters called me and we found out what was going on before any more were released to her.
5) Good people, bad homes.. this is where so many arrive. Homes with no education on care, misled by marketing that says they are "just like dogs" and can be walked on leashes and kept in crates.. homes with a yard full of dogs who "are very sweet" and love all their other pets.. homes with horses and other livestock dangers.. homes with no fences, weak fences, right next to big dogs, homes with no grazing space or shade.. you name it, we see it..
6) Illegal pigs; NAIS and the Aphis regulatory service .. pigs who have been transported into the state without first getting the necessary health papers, identification and if required (depending on what state you are coming from and what states you are traveling through) blood testing run great risks of being confiscated and killed. Those who are not "caught" run the risk of bringing in disease to our pigs in TN. Those who are brought legally, having had all tests done and properly identified now have their information on record for the NAIS data base. Once enacted it will require every animal, be it pet goat or horse or pot bellied pig, to be tracked in its every movement through its life. Any time there is a disease outbreak within your area your animals will become part of the mad panic to protect the huge interest group called the beef and pork industry. and if the history of such events is any indicator there will be wholesale slaughter of everything regardless of whether its sick or not. Just a few more good reasons to keep your pigs at home in the states they are in now.
It is a rare home that can provide a decent life for a pig. It is up to you to make sure you place him in that home.. and not one where his life , health and happiness are in jeopardy. We get reports weekly of pigs in bad homes. We are beginning a process to put pressure on bad homes through the "lists "by publication of DNA and abuse databases. We have good laws and vets who will testify to the abuse of pigs kept in improper conditions for long term good health (This is a crime under TN law) and will prosecute when/where we can.. but public exposure can often make a change a lot faster and make sure no other animals are placed in these homes. Where the info is available we will also list the name of the person who placed the pig in the home.. Responsibility for these pigs rests with all of us.